


Strange Circumstances

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Christmas, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: Tamsin, pulling a small wheeled oxygen tank, gives her a grin and a wink. The woman who must be sensei’s mother, Viviane, says, “Please come in, Miss Mori.” And the nine-year-old boy at her side eyes Mako distrustfully. 
Once she’s over the threshold and Stacker shuts the door behind her, Mako says, “Hello,” at the precise moment Duke Pentecost says, “Kon’nichiwa.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pvwork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/gifts).



Seven months after Onibaba, thirty days after the adoption was finalized, Mako follows Stacker through a squeaky iron gate and up two steps to a strange house in a strange country. Her sensei unlocks the door, and just in the bright hallway waits a small family. 

Tamsin, pulling a small wheeled oxygen tank, gives her a grin and a wink. The woman who must be sensei’s mother, Viviane, says, “Please come in, Miss Mori.” And the nine-year-old boy at her side eyes Mako distrustfully. 

Once she’s over the threshold and Stacker shuts the door behind her, Mako says, “Hello,” at the precise moment Duke Pentecost says, “Kon’nichiwa.” 

They stare at each other, and then Mako can’t help but smile. “Kon’nichiwa,” she says. 

“Duke,” says Stacker, “would you like to show Mako her room?” 

At first Duke looks like he wants to say no, but he nods. He and Viviane must have rehearsed the way Mako and Stacker did on the flight to London. Yes, Stacker has a son. Yes, he loves his son and Mako equally, but Duke is younger and may not understand. 

_ It’s been hard for him, not being with me. Can you be kind until he warms up to you?  _

Mako nodded seriously at that. She thinks she can. She wanted a little brother, once. And now, under strange circumstances, she has one. 

Duke leads her down the hall from the entryway, and Mako gets a glimpse of a sitting room and dining area attached to a kitchen, and a staircase leading up. She has enough of a grasp of the state of the world economy to know this place would have been expensive even before the kaiju. 

Behind the kitchen is a narrow bonus room with white walls, and slanted windows in place of a roof. Mako can see the sky above, pink with dusk. A little day bed sits against the inner wall, opposite a bookshelf. Mako sets her bag down and tests the give of the mattress. 

Duke is watching her. “He must really like you.” At Mako’s look he goes on, “Taking you with him to all the Shatterdomes, with the war on.” 

Mako’s face burns. That she gets to spend so much time with Stacker, when Duke sees him a handful of times in a year… “He has to, for the adoption,” she is compelled to say. She can’t look him in the eye. 

“Yeah. The adoption people came here a few months ago. Wanted to know what I thought of my dad.” 

“What did you say?” 

Duke shrugs, juts his chin a little. “That he loves me, and protects me. They told me about you and I said he’d take good care of you.” 

Mako blinks back tears. 

“Tea,” Viviane calls, and Duke turns at once and darts away. The attention span of a nine-year-old. Mako follows. In the sitting room by a heavily decorated tree, Viviane presses a delicately painted porcelain cup into Mako’s hands. 

Stacker waits on the sofa, with space on either side, and as Mako sits beside him, Duke gets in the crook of Stacker’s arm and puts his head on his father’s chest. “Hey, big man,” Stacker says softly. “Picked you out some presents in Nagasaki.” 

“I got Overwatch for Mako,” says Duke. 

“With whose money?” Stacker laughs, and Tamsin points both thumbs at herself. Stacker makes an unsurprised noise. “I know what we’re doing tomorrow.” 

And that is what they do the next day, after all the other presents--the tea set Mako picked out for Viviane, the English-style partial service Viviane got for Mako, the hat Stacker knit for Tamsin (which she puts on immediately, and it’s almost exactly the same color her hair used to be), the Pocky and 300 yen store trinkets from Mako to Duke, and on and on until they’re sitting down in front of the television, controllers in hand and console starting up. 

“Who do you want to play?” Duke says as Mako consults the packaging. 

The pink-haired one looks promising. Reminds Mako of Sasha Kaidanovsky. “I want to be a tank,” Mako says. 

Duke gives her a grin that is very, very Stacker. “Me too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I found out after finishing this that Overwatch doesn't even have split screen multiplayer. TOO BAD I'M KEEPING IT


End file.
